Midland mail order gun smugglers locked up for combined 35 years
Three men have been jailed for a total of 35 years for importing illegal firearms and ammunition into the UK with the hope of selling them to organised criminals.
Keston Joseph and Dion Roberts, from Coventry, enrolled Dashan Caines into their scheme to import the weapons by post from America, with the hope of making massive profits.
Dashan Caines, from Sutton Coldfield, was sentenced to nine years in prison for his part in the plot, while Roberts was jailed for 12 years and Joseph for 14.
The National Crime Agency launched an investigation after two semi-automatic pistols and hollow-point bullets were intercepted at a parcel hub in the Midlands on 24 January 2020.
Border Force officers recovered the weapons, which had been concealed in an electronic safe in a package labelled as car parts, sent from Orlando in Florida.
The parcel was addressed to a John Bob Walton in Cambridge and five days later a man claiming to be Walton called Parcelforce asking where it was. NCA investigators traced the number back to 33-year-old Roberts.
He and 33-year-old Joseph were stopped in Coventry by NCA officers on 31 January 2020, supported by West Midlands Police, and were both arrested.
Messages from Roberts's phone showed they had successfully imported another semi-automatic pistol two weeks before his arrest using the same method.
In conversation with a French contact about importing weapons to France, he said: “With a lot of terrorist acts going on – I know the security level over there is high – but that’s something I’m gonna try and find out how to get them over there… the man we dealing with right now… the man’s loaded.”
Roberts and Joseph collected the package containing the first weapon on 11 January 2020. Officers recovered a photo from Joseph’s phone taken that morning of him holding the gun.
Phone records showed that following this, Roberts and Joseph were actively searching for buyers whilst simultaneously organising the shipment of the second package.
Roberts pleaded guilty to conspiring to acquire and sell prohibited weapons and ammunition. Caines and Joseph were found guilty of the same offences following a five-week trial.
National Crime Agency branch commander Mick Pope, said: “These men planned to build a business on selling illegal weapons to other criminals. They saw this only as a money-making scheme, paying no consideration to the danger firearms pose to the public.
“Criminals who own firearms – often those behind the supply of illegal drugs – use them to instil fear, inflict violence and in some cases, to kill.
“The success of this investigation reinforces our commitment to protect the public and tackle this threat.
“We will continue to work with key partners, such as Border Force, to prevent illegal firearms from entering the UK.”
